ARTT: A Scalable Approach for Monitoring the Quality of Time in Distributed Systems

Abstract

Monitoring mechanisms are an essential component of timing security. Existing mechanisms allow for a comprehensive view of the distribution of time throughout a network, but they do not scale to large networks. We propose a new method called aggregated reverse time transfer (ARTT), which builds upon the reverse time transfer mechanism and the IEEE 1588 monitoring TLV to limit message complexity and redundant information. We demonstrate that these two mechanisms can be used in concert to report the timing error of a network more efficiently without a significant loss in accuracy.